British intelligence team studies bomb link with Bin Laden

BRITISH intelligence experts were travelling to Yemen last night to investigate the bombing of the embassy in Sana'a and to ascertain whether Osama Bin Laden is targeting British interests.

The international terrorist, blamed for the 1998 attacks on the American embassies in Africa, is known to have close links with fundamentalist groups working in Yemen. While he has made various threats against American interests, he has held back from including Britain directly in his group's target list. British investigators may take some time in establishing exactly who was responsible for the embassy explosion because the Yemeni security services are not as efficient or forthcoming with information as London would want.

Yemen remains tribal and the authority of the central government does not extend fully across the country. Fundamentalist groups have been able to recruit, train and operate with little interference from the authorities. The attack on the American destroyer in Aden on Thursday was a well-organised operation bearing all the hallmarks of Bin Laden's zealous supporters. The reports of the two men in the tender boat standing to attention before the explosion suggests that they were fundamentalist suicide bombers.

But lobbing a device over the embassy's perimeter wall on a weekend - Yemen is a Muslim country and the Friday day of prayer marks the start of the weekend - is more slapdash. The bomb caused more damage than might have been expected because it appeared to hit a stand-by generator which exploded spectacularly. The fact that an American ship was targeted suggests that Washington remains the principal target of any terrorist in Yemen, although there is a lack of potential American targets.

As the former British colony in the south of the country. there are still strong British links with Aden. Unlike America, Britain maintains a consulate there, there is an Anglican church and extensive commercial links. Aden's airport is based on the old RAF base of Khormaksar, which for years was the largest RAF base in the world outside Britain.